POLICE Commissioner Karl O’Callaghan has launched an investigation after it emerged an erratic driving complaint in Subiaco three weeks ago was linked to former Transport Minister Troy Buswell.

Mr O’Callaghan said today he only found out yesterday through his media adviser that Mr Buswell was behind the wheel.

WA Police received the erratic driving complaint from a member of the public at 1.38am on February 23. At 1.45am, the job was dispatched to a patrol car as a “317”, which means an alleged drink-driver.

Mr O’Callaghan said the two officers who attended the Roberts Road house in response to the complaint did not know who the driver was.

He said the officers did not speak with Mr Buswell on the night and it appeared they did not knock on the front door.

“The vehicle is not registered to any particular individual; it’s registered to the Office of State Administration,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

“Our incident management system doesn’t show that address as being registered to Mr Buswell either, so they would have had absolutely no idea.

“The officers got to the premises, the premises were in darkness, the gate was shut, the house was closed, and they made a decision not to take the matter any further that night.”

He said the house was listed to “a person I’ve never heard of”.

The officers recorded that the vehicle was “slightly damaged”, the house was in darkness, and there were no visible tyre marks.

The case was closed off at 1.54am.

Mr O’Callaghan today ordered police to interview the complainant to get further details. Police officers also went to Mr Buswell’s Subiaco home to take photos and talk to neighbours.

“I went and listened to the original complaint, I’ve listened to that now three times,” he said.

“The original complaint, it seems to me, hasn’t been closed off properly. The original complainant was not interviewed and had made allegations, so today I’ve asked police officers to follow up those allegations.

“Five minutes and 41 seconds into the tape, the person says ‘we actually joked between ourselves that we thought it looked like Troy Buswell’. Now they could’ve said it looked like Meryl Streep or anybody else, that doesn’t give the (operator) anything to go on.

“It clearly was just put into the context of a joke.”

Mr O’Callaghan said he would release the recording of the complaint after inquiries into the matter were closed.

“I think it’s fair to say there is an investigation, but we are yet to make an assessment of whether it will be taken any further,” he said.

He said he had not yet spoken with the police officers involved on the night.

“To put this in the context of a lot of these sorts of complaints that we get, they’re often just checked to make sure there’s no immediate danger to the public and then the officers get dispatched to something else,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

“Because the officers going to this particular incident were just treating it like any other traffic incident and had no other information about the driver, none of this information ever went anywhere, it was written off at 1.54am and that was the end of it.

“My view is that the officers should at some stage, not necessarily on the night but at some stage, have spoken to the complainant.”